


desperation

by anythingbutplatonic



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: 19.01.2016, 21.01.2016, Angst, M/M, Self-Harm, protective!robert, references to child sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 03:43:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18327941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutplatonic/pseuds/anythingbutplatonic
Summary: There was no handbook for something like this, and nothing he had ever learned or experienced could have prepared him. All he knew was that his first priority, his only priority really, was to be there for Aaron.Set during the Gordon reveal episodes (19th and 21st January 2019).





	desperation

It was the second time in just over as many days that Robert had watched Aaron sleep.

The first time had been on the sofa in the Dingles’ cottage, his gaze never leaving the curled-up lump under the blanket until he was absolutely sure that he was finally getting some rest. That the tears had eventually stopped, and his breathing had returned to normal, and the redness of his cheeks had faded, leaving his scared, vulnerable face stiff with salt.

When he’d made sure that Aaron wouldn’t wake, he’d barely made it to the small bathroom before buckling in front of the toilet, heaving, emptying the contents of his stomach as Aaron’s words replayed over and over and over in his head. The things he’d told him about Gordon. How he’d treated him. The terrible things he’d done and why. 

Then he’d shaken himself off, swallowing down bitter bile, and gone back into the living room, because he had to pretend for Aaron’s sake that this didn’t leave him as shaken and terrified as it did. Because if he showed exactly how much this had affected him, it’d send Aaron over the edge.

He didn’t want to do that. 

Ever.

So instead he’d camped out on the uncomfortable, worn-out carpet, using his jacket as a lumpy substitute for a pillow, and listened for the sleep-deep breaths coming from above him on the couch as he willed himself to sleep, too. 

Like the image of the fresh scars on Aaron’s body weren’t burned onto the insides of his eyelids. 

Like the need to wrap his hands around Gordon’s throat wasn’t burning like a fire inside every inch of him. 

 

 

Now, he was sat in a hard plastic hospital chair, across from Aaron who lay sleeping soundly, his forearm bandaged to the elbow where the infected cut had been. Some of the colour had come back into his face, but he still seemed awfully pale to Robert, dark frizzy curls against the stark white of the pillow and heavy purple bags under his closed eyes. The urge to brush an errant lock of hair away from his forehead, or stroke his fingertips to his cheek, was like a live wire under his skin; he itched to do something,  _anything_ , other than sit in this stupid chair and watch helplessly, knowing what he did now about what in Aaron’s past had left him so broken. 

Broken, but so beautiful, too. Strong. Brave. Braver than Robert ever was, or ever would be. 

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why Robert loved him as he did. Because he was the possibility of a future where he didn’t try so hard to hide himself from his difference. Where he accepted it instead of burying it with money and fast cars and marriages of convenience, with meaningless sex and a sharp tongue that was quicker to anger than it was to show kindness. 

Swallowing the fear he felt simmering under the surface, he got up from his seat and crossed over to Aaron’s bed, sitting on the end of it as gently as he could so it wouldn’t disturb him. He watched the slow rise and fall of his chest for a few moments, and then his gaze fell over the bandages on his arm. Almost on instinct, his fingers reached to trace the outline of the deep scar he now had there, hidden by the white gauze but as easy for Robert to find as the map of his own veins on the back of his hand; he knew where it was without looking, because it was committed to his memory, just like everything else about Aaron. 

He gently rubbed his thumb over the bandage, imagining he could feel the outline of the cut under his skin. Like his feather-light, careful touch would help it heal, somehow, like the way his mum used to rub his stomach whenever he had a stomachache and it would always make him feel better. He didn’t know if it actually worked, but it was worth a try, because right now he felt like he was grasping at straws, stumbling blindly into a black hole of horror that no-one but he and Aaron knew of, or could comprehend. 

There was no handbook for something like this, and nothing he had ever learned or experienced could have prepared him. All he knew was that his first priority, his  _only_  priority really, was to be there for Aaron. 

Because everything, in the end, always came back to him. It came back to loving him, and what he was prepared to do in defence of that love.

Even if Aaron didn’t want him to, or didn’t even believe him. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his tongue thick in his mouth. “I’m just - so sorry that anything like this ever happened to you. And I know you can’t hear me and I know you don’t believe me, but I’m here for you. For everything. I won’t ever leave you to deal with stuff on your own ever again, okay?”

His throat burned like fire, and he desperately tried to blink away the tears that suddenly made his vision glassy. Then he continued.

“Just promise me somethin’, alright? Please…please don’t do  _this_. Promise me that you won’t do anything like this again without talking to me first. I don’t want to see you hurt yourself again, not this badly. I don’t think I could handle it.”

Was it a selfish request? Yes, possibly. But he  _loved_  him. And he was desperate, this time. 

_“I love you.”_

More desperate than perhaps he’d ever been. 

**Author's Note:**

> originally written feb 17th 2019
> 
> come find me on tumblr: robertssvgden


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